Through a Long Hall
by Wynne
Summary: MWPP through the eyes of a tormented classmate. Much madness truly is divinest sense, but her mind was too weak to grasp the significance. She could not prevent the dark times to come... all she could do was watch the sickle rise.


A/N: Many thanks go to my wonderful betas; Kate Lynn, Sarah, and Fenny/Falco. This fic wouldn't be as it is without you three. :) Also, indisputable credit and gratitude go to Clarimonde and the other MWPP posters on SQ and FA--your laments of the cliches and your love of the characters' true natures inspired this one-shot completely. I only hope you, and the rest of those who love this era, enjoy the results.  
  
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Divination is the art of the mind.  
  
It has never come easily for me. Many other students think me mad for what I see... they think me a fraud, a fool, a hack, much like Professor Trelawney's daughter, who wants to follow in her stumbling footsteps. No, that is not true, I am not mad. I wish I were mad.  
  
This life is hard to live when no one perceives what I do. I walk a narrow path between helping others and being completely ineffectual. If I speak too much, they laugh. If I remain silent, do nothing, then dreadful things will happen. I have made enemies among the superstitious and the sensible alike, and some even whisper that I am an avatar for the Death Eaters' master. I once hexed Marsha Brewer to keep her from going outside, because I saw her straying too near the Forbidden Forest. The resulting detention was brutal. My grades in Potions are the worst of my entire House, because I often interfere with the work of others to prevent disastrous mistakes. I threw a rock at an inattentive Seeker because I saw him lying on the ground with torrents of blood spilling from a broken neck--mere seconds after he flew off in anger and disgust, a Bludger passed by exactly where his throat would have been. No one seemed to notice that; instead, I was punished for my interference. I am not allowed to watch Quidditch anymore, for my own good. I am lucky that I was not expelled. The Headmaster was kind... far kinder than my youth.  
  
My earliest memories of strangeness begin in that I never liked to go in our attic as a child. Dust made thick clouds in the sunlight, and in winter wind, the glass panes rattled in their frames far more fiercely than seemed to be natural. There was this filthy rust-colored stain on the left wall, and a frayed rope dangled from the rafters near an old bed frame. Even at eight years of age, sometimes I would imagine I saw a mustachioed man in long underwear and suspenders, staring at me with blank eyes. I would watch as he climbed up on the bed, walked through the rope, and disappeared. My eyes moving down to the mattress, the white sheets would then fill with an expanding spot of darkest red, red, red...  
  
Sometimes it is impossible to know the difference between real and unreal.  
  
I walk down the hall, now. This is a perfect example. For others, this is only a simple stone corridor, but for me, it is another world that I wish I did not see.  
  
I've watched the pipes bulge. I don't know why, but now and then they warp into sinuous coils before my eyes. I have the feeling it has done this in reality before, and will someday again, but not soon. Still, when I see it, I am afraid... afraid for days... irrationally so. I figured out why when I found myself terrified of Cora Dawson one day, and perfectly calm the next... the day I was frightened of her, she had been wearing green robes with round yellow rings on them, like Muggle tie-dye. She and I are Muggle-born. Unlike the Bludger, my fear of yellow spots makes no sense. It is random. My talents are useful at times, but often they are only a plague on an otherwise healthy mind.  
  
There is a corridor where I can't walk in the middle of the room, because there's only a gaping hole. It leads deep, deep into the earth, where there lives something dead which I do not understand. It is made of paper and tar, and there is a mirror... a silvery surface which could swallow people. But it doesn't frighten me. It feels like the last place to go when something frightening has happened. I know this is meaningless and illogical, and I should be frightened, but I am not afraid. I am disturbed.  
  
What does truly frighten me is the closet by my Arithmancy classroom. It is my favorite subject, but I dread going there sometimes. I've schooled myself to always take the round route, so that I don't have to walk past that closet, where I can always see an eye socket staring at me. Socket, because there is no flesh left to truly stare. I opened it once. I don't remember what I saw in there, for the sole reason that I do not want to. My troubled mind has burned that cancer away, so that what remains might be salvaged. I tell myself to stop pondering these things, and I obey. If I am to continue to be sane, I must press it all aside. I focus on my surroundings.  
  
There is a boy with shaggy dark hair a long way down the hall, coming toward me. I know him even from this distance. He is also a seventh-year, close to graduating. His face is animated and lively, extremely handsome, and his pace is swift as he strides along beside our Professor, matching her brisk steps. My ears prick. I listen hard, trying to catch every word as I cast my eyes down. "I don't know if I have the knack, but if I prepare myself, maybe someday I'll be able to learn the same. I... find the idea appealing," he says. My face flickers with faint suspicion as I detect an odd note in his voice. "I know I've said this before, but I really appreciate the way you've helped me over the years. I... wouldn't be anywhere near as comfortable with Transfiguration if not for the extra homework you gave me when I asked. Thanks again."  
  
I pretend I don't see him as McGonagall answers approvingly in her strong, crisp voice. The smells of spice and sweat linger after him. Quite a few girls have their eye on that one, though he hasn't had many girlfriends to my knowledge. He's always ready with a smile, a nudge, and a wink... I can barely stand to talk to him because he always tries to tease me into a smile. It was strange to see him being so studious--he doesn't seem the bookworm type, but he projected such intense interest just now... it made my face warm. If I wasn't afraid of being on the wrong side of his sense of humor, which for his worst enemies can be quite ruthless, I might seek his company more often. I shudder to think what would happen to someone who really made him angry.  
  
As I glance at him just before they pass me altogether, it also disturbs me that his roguish smile reveals such long, curved teeth, and that the Professor's midnight blue robes and tall black hat seemed to stretch and lengthen to brown, tattered cloaks as her withering hand grips his arm with visible force, seeming no longer to walk beside him but roughly escort him.  
  
I wander on, and the sounds of speech recede behind me, excited discourse fading into nothing.  
  
I hear voices from an empty classroom. Walking forward slowly, I listen.  
  
"I... I just... feel so... isolated. The world is so... empty. Lonely. My friends don't really care about me. They only pretend to... they hang around because they pity me. But with you, I don't feel alone anymore... there's this--this... radiance, like an inner light you have. You're so very pretty, and you're so brave... exactly the kind of girl I... I always dreamed about. But," I don't have to see him to know he's blushing sweetly, "I shouldn't be telling you this. You're just so easy to talk to, I can't stop. Now you'll think badly of me... please, forget I said anything, Katherine."  
  
"Oh..." she exclaims, her heart in her voice, "No, I won't forget. I think it's lovely that you like me this much. You're so kind-hearted... you really shouldn't let those brutes treat you that way! You deserve to be treated better."  
  
He sighs in seeming relief and joy, almost gushing. "Oh, I barely dared to hope... you're so lovely. I know I'm not worth anything, I can't think why you'd be interested in me. But you're so caring... no one understands me but you. I could never tell the truth to anyone else."  
  
A long pause. Then, "I know there's no way a girl like you would be interested in me, but... will you... is there any way I could... could... kiss you?"  
  
The intonation is... wheedling. It rings so earnest I would almost believe the words if I had not heard that same inner light nonsense a month ago. What is his name? I remember moments before she speaks it, because it sounds so much like pester. I can't believe the girls still fall for it.  
  
Peering around the corner, I stare at him as they embrace, his slightly chubby arms going around her back... sickening. Her lips kiss his whiskered face, and I shrink back against the wall, edging along in horror. How can she kiss _that_? But I remember, with malaise, that only I see him this way. Only I see the twitching of his nose and the wormlike appendage poking through the seat of his robes.  
  
Watching them kiss with disgusted curiosity, I see his fingers move along her back. He caresses her through the mottled pale silk draped over her skin. Something silver glints in his hand of a sudden, and before I can cry out, he stabs her hard between the shoulder blades. Like the vision I saw in the attic, I watch the scarlet spread everywhere, seeping through her tunic... with a strangled gasp, I cover my mouth--she somehow doesn't seem to have noticed, how can she not have noticed her torn flesh leaking life?  
  
They keep on moving their lips as he pulls her closer. When my foot scrapes against the stone in stumbling on to get help, I see them break apart and glance toward the door... but I am quick enough that their eyes do not register me. I hurry into a darker corridor, realizing now that it was only my half-maddened mind that saw him thus. I must stop thinking this way. I must stop.  
  
As my eyes adjust to the dim bronze light in the next hallway, I have a sense of presence here. My qualms increase, and I stare down the hall... then realize there is someone else here. Every slimy organ in my chest cavity freezes solid as I meet his enigmatic gaze.  
  
"Hello," he says in a soft voice. It slithers into my ears, as though his hot breath were a misty serpent trailing far ahead of him. Though he is not loud, is never loud, I hear him perfectly.  
  
He flexes his fingers, and I stare at them. The nails... they are thin and pointed at the ends, sharp enough to rend my flesh. I hope he will not reach for my hand. I smile weakly, not taking my eyes from his long claws.  
  
Observing me with a slight frown, he comes closer. When I back away a step, his brows knit and he stops, tilting his head. He is a loner, and I have the odd thought that I ought to run on to grandmother's house. "Are you quite well?"  
  
I swallow and open my mouth, but cannot speak, feeling pale. I had not known one could feel pale. Then in answer, surprising us both, I shake my head in the negative.  
  
His stare pierces me sharply, and I feel it will be those pointed nails next. I sink against the wall in fear. "Perhaps," he says slowly, making me shiver, "you ought to go to the infirmary. I'm just on my way now. You've always seemed... prone to illnesses, like myself."  
  
I nod my head, this time very hastily, bobbing my chin in a jittery fashion, agreeing. Then, unable to take the possibility of him turning on me and pouncing, I bolt down the hallway in the opposite direction.  
  
I don't even need to see his face to know it is surprised; I do not care. He does not fool me. He has never fooled me. I have always been the one to see that glint of feverish light in his eyes and know that he wants to devour my tender flesh. I never realized it more clearly than just now, when he walked forward into the moon-glow slanting from the window.  
  
My heart's rhythmic pulsing wracks my chest with amazing power. I heave in ragged breath after ragged breath, sprinting dangerously fast until I have reached the safety of the library. A nice, public place. My head pounds as wildly as my heart--I have to get away, get some sense of normalcy again. The visions tonight are stranger than usual, and I cannot bear to see another odd thing. I fear that more is wrong in me than I once believed.  
  
When I enter, it is strangely silent. I barely remember that most will probably be at dinner now. I stumble forwards, throwing myself into the light, and sink over a table. A paranoid shiver wracks my body as I glance around, only to find I am not alone. This is both a horror and a relief.  
  
There they are--Head Boy and Head Girl. Dark strands and auburn locks brush and mingle over the books between them, then separate as their attention shifts to me. I have probably interrupted their meeting. Their intellectual stares pierce me so that it is difficult to remember that they are not Ravenclaws.  
  
Sometimes it looks as though he is wearing antlers. I don't know why those Gryffindors make me see tails and claws and other parts that belong on no human being. I make no sense, not even a twisted form of it. Why those boys? Why not others? Should they not look like lions, or the Slytherins like snakes?  
  
Now, there is no trace of animal appendage upon his body... but something odd is happening. The light is going away. It doesn't affect them anymore. The room remains as bright, but their skin darkens... her fiery hair turns black... their clothing is shrouded slowly in darkest night.  
  
I can hear the dripping of a faucet. I can hear a baby crying in the night. I can hear footsteps climbing up the stairs, materializing out of nowhere. For no reason that I can grasp, I feel tears running down my face as my hysteria becomes so overpowering that I cannot move or scream. Pain... sorrow... loss... fear... and that mournful wail that fills me with a kind of hideous joy as much as it tears my heart. To my disbelief, I feel joy that the darkness has come here...  
  
I stare at the shadows clinging to them both, my eyes huge and my shoulder blades pressed achingly hard to the wall. I cannot be forgiven. Then suddenly, quite suddenly, the darkness is banished. First, James alone, and then Lily as well are bathed in an eerie green glow. I can see their expressions... unsettled, worried, and so mockingly normal.  
  
"Apollonia..." James says with concern. "Are you quite all right?"  
  
"Yes, James," I lie in a whisper, and the sound is scraped from a throat like bark. "I am fine. I... only need to rest a while."  
  
"Is there any way we might help?" Lily asks, her eyes rich with gentleness. "Perhaps there is something you would like to tell us?"  
  
I know that I can never speak of this to anyone. They will think I am mad, as I now at last understand myself to be.  
  
Stripped of all that held me together, I can only offer a tortured, "Time will tell."  
  
~*~ 


End file.
